October 7, 2017

Bitcoin.org hits out at SegWit2X supporters

Business

October 7, 2017

With a month to go before the November hard fork, Bitcoin information website Bitcoin.org is launching a full-blown attack against 50 companies supporting SegWit2X.

On Thursday, the website published a blog post announcing that it will publicly denounce on October 11 supporters of the hard fork scheduled to happen around November 18. In its announcement, Bitcoin.org threatened to place banners on every page of the website “warning the risks of using services that will default” to SegWit2X, the protocol change embedded in the BTC1 software client that stemmed from the New York Agreement.

“S2X companies will be called out by name,” the post stated. “To ensure that we only warn users against companies that will actually put user deposits at risk, we urge all companies to publicly clarify their stance before the above date, either by a highly-visible public statement or by commenting on Bitcoin.org issue #1835 (or by doing both).”

Specifically, Bitcoin.org demands that such companies will not list the SegWit2X chain as “BTC” or “Bitcoin” nor will they do anything to “deprive users of their coins.” This may include crediting BTC deposits only as S2X deposits, although providing access to S2X coins is “acceptable.” Lastly, the companies must also continue to provide normal service to non-S2X users.

“We consider it tolerable for companies to support S2X in ways that do not contradict the above three points, such as by supporting both Bitcoin and S2X simultaneously as separate cryptocurrencies,” said the Bitcoin.org team.

The threat of public condemnation has, unsurprisingly, caught the ire of many SegWit2X supporters. BTC1 developer Jeff Garzik said the announcement follows the long line of actions in Bitcoin Core’s “culture of reprisals,” which also included his dismissal from the group’s repository early this year.

Meanwhile, Eric Vorhees, CEO of ShapeShift, which was also included in the list, called Bitcoin.org “an explicit PR tool of Core.” In a reddit post, Vorhees said “Using bitcoin.org for political positions… not a good precedent. Don’t people here often condemn Roger [Ver] for using bitcoin.com in the same way?”
By declaring that “SegWit2X has nothing to do with SegWit,” the people behind Bitcoin.org are affirming their intent to kill the SegWit2X hard fork. But in doing so, they are also freeing all the miners to publicly say the obvious—that BTC is no longer Bitcoin.

This brings us to the question, which is now the one true Bitcoin? We have ethereum, which has sent the cryptocurrency space into an initial coin offering (ICO) craze. We also have another group of miners who wants to create yet another version of Bitcoin on October 25, and they’re calling it Bitcoin Gold. And then there’s Bitcoin Cash, which can be considered the only adult fork as it continues to move forward post the August blockchain split with over 8,000 blocks processed as of September.